


Nothing changes, days go by

by dancinguniverse



Category: Firefly, True Detective
Genre: Crossover, Gen, I'm Sorry, IN SPACE!, Synesthesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 14:57:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1391902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/pseuds/dancinguniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You need a ship?” The voice is a rainbow, and Rust glances up, thrown. Even after he cleared the psych station, everything here on Ariel has been muted shades of gray and brown, hard silver and white. The girl smiles at him from her lawn chair, twirling a parasol the color of her voice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing changes, days go by

**Author's Note:**

> So someone on the kinkmeme asked for, "Interstellar AU: Rust in space," and for some reason I started writing this, only to realize halfway through that they probably didn't mean a space AU in general (which this isn't), but rather the upcoming Nolan/McConaughey project that's actually called Interstellar (which this really isn't). 
> 
> I'm sorry, anon: This is not your fill.  
> I'm sorry, fandom: I'm posting this anyway.

“You need a ship?”

The voice is a rainbow, and Rust glances up, thrown. Even after he cleared the psych station, everything here on Ariel has been muted shades of gray and brown, hard silver and white. The girl smiles at him from her lawn chair, twirling a parasol the color of her voice. “Where are you heading?”

He takes a step closer, out of the traffic of the main path. “Where are _you_?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Bouncing around the rim, mostly. Calliope, for a start. Where you need to go?”

He hefts his bag, all that he has, and glances at the ship behind her. Transport ship, older model. Notorious for smuggling. Like he gives a shit anymore. “Someplace different,” he says.

Her smile is wide like the sun. “We can get you there,” she promises. “I’m Kaylee, and this is _Serenity_.”

“Rust.” He reaches forward to shake the hand she offers, but his eyes are on the ship. Serenity. He doubts that.

* * *

Kaylee’s showing him to his bunk when a man’s voice starts yelling from the cargo bay. “Kaylee! We got your precious doohickeys, come take ‘em to the engine room!”

“Stop yelling like it’s a barn!” she hollers back. “We got a passenger!”

A minute later there’s a thump of boots, and a man appears at the end of the corridor. “We’re taking on passengers again?” he asks, and Rust instantly marks the gun at his hip, the duster—rebel, could be an issue—and the silent argument he has with Kaylee.

“He already paid,” she says sweetly, and the man cocks his head at her, then gives Rust a forced smile.

“Well, in that case,” he drawls, and holds out his hand. “Captain Mal Reynolds. And you are?”

“Rust Cohle.”

“And what is it you do, Mr. Cohle?”

“I was a cop,” he answers, and Kaylee’s eyes go wide. The captain pulls his hand back.

He looks at Kaylee. “A cop,” he repeats, and she bites her lip. “Well I’m sure we’ll all feel safer on this trip with the law looking out for us.” He backs away down the hall. “Zoe!” he calls over his shoulder. “Why don’t you finish stowing those supplies and then come meet our new passenger the cop!” He glares at Kaylee, and then disappears back towards the cargo bay. He pops his head back around a second later. “Welcome aboard,” he tells Rust. Then he’s gone again.

“He’s just…” Kaylee flounders for a moment for some excuse, and Rust shakes his head.

“It's none of my business,” he tells her. “Mind if I wash up?”

She nods eagerly. “Dinner’s at seven!”

* * *

Dinner is a silent affair until the companion, one Inara Serra, inclines her head to him. “So," she says invitingly. "An officer of the law. That must be exciting.”

Rust takes some rice from the central bowl. “That was one word for it."

There are all kinds of glances being exchanged around him, eyes meeting eyes over the table, and Rust keeps his head down until finally Kaylee says with desperate hopefulness, "You say _was_?"

"Yeah," Rust answers. "I was working narcotics, undercover mostly, and I caught three bullets in the side in an op that went bad. Took three of them out with me." Jayne grimaces. "That was a little too much for the Alliance to overlook, so I did my time under psych eval. It was while I was in there that I got the news about Miranda." The room goes unnaturally still. "When I got out, they gave me my choice of postings, as long as it wasn't narcotics." He eats his dinner. It's not bad. That'll change, once they've been in the dark a few weeks.

"So what'd you choose?" Zoe's voice is cool. Her knife rests easily in her hand.

"I told them they could fuck themselves, and chose the black," he answers calmly. "Life was getting too complicated. There's a lot of other worlds to be useful on."

* * *

He expects the emptiness to steady him, help him remember how to be a person with a modicum of restraint. Ariel was too much noise, too much like Crash always in his head, just waiting to spin out of control. He embraces the darkness, but it spooks him, too. Miranda is too fresh on his mind, even if he got the news later than he should have. He's sick of people, sick of them trying to insert meaning into biological drives and imprinted programming, but the proof of what they made when they started hacking that programming is undeniably worse. Rust isn't sure what to advocate at this point. At least he has plenty of time to think about it.

When he gets restless, Rust prowls the ship, the parts they'll let him when they're awake, and the rest when they're not. He spends sleepless nights tapping on the ship's walls and floors until he finds their stash, just because he's bored and he can. At first he thinks it’s drugs and breaks a seal to test it, but then the smell hits him, sharp and green, nearly bowling him over. Tea. Must be a hundred pounds of it. He stares at it for a minute, then slides the hatch back in place. He keeps a tiny handful in his pocket though, and when the emptiness of space starts to get to him in the bad way, he runs his fingers through it and holds them to his nose, breathing in the scent of something that still smells like sunlight.

* * *

The crew doesn't warm to him. It might be Rust's people skills, but he thinks it's probably that until recently he was an Alliance representative, and they're a bunch of petty criminals. It doesn't concern him. They're not a dangerous bunch, for the most part. Jayne's a dog on a leash, and while Rust wouldn't turn his back on Zoe, she's not the type to strike without cause.  None of the others are a threat, though there's certainly a mystery around the doctor and his sister, who don't appear at all until about the time—Rust would guess exactly the time—they clear Alliance airspace around the central planets. They give their names as Peter and Jiang, which are lies, but not ones he's driven to unravel. There's no one for Rust to call anyway, even if he wanted. It's quiet in the black, that's for sure.  He likes the hum of the engine, and sometimes he takes his notebook, hunkers down among the metal, and lets it sing to him. He even falls asleep there, every now and then.

Kaylee finds him there before too long. He tries to explain to her the way his brain turns the mechanical sounds into something else entirely without expecting understanding, but she smiles at him. "She talks to me all the time," she agrees. "Not bad company, is she?"

Rust has had worse, that's for sure.

* * *

One night when he can't sleep he goes walking, ends up near the engine room again. But this time when he approaches, he hears movement and voices. Kaylee's voice, a ripple of light, panting out, "Simon, Simon," and the doctor's ragged breathing. So that's two questions answered then. Rust slips quietly away, ends up in the cockpit instead, watching the stars. There are so many more of them out here. The constellations are upside down from how he learned them a lifetime ago on St. Albans, but he can still find some familiar shapes. Most, though, are lost amid the blazing scatter, all the negative space filled in by more stars. The riot of light is more likely to induce the hallucinations, but after weeks of metal walls, he almost welcomes them. His conscious brain knows they're just chemical echoes, burned out pathways firing off pulses of visual signals, but they feel like they could mean something, if only he could get it. He feels so close, sometimes, to some bigger truth, something that might explain how Miranda and Crash and Sophia can all exist in the same 'verse. It escapes him though, and he goes back to his room before the others wake up.

* * *

By the time they hit Calliope, Rust is more than ready to say his goodbyes. Crash is good and buried, and if dissolving into the void means embracing the Reavers, then he can resign himself to at least being useful somewhere. There’s nothing for him to do on a boat in the middle of space, and it’s clear the crew would rather commit their petty crime away from the eyes of law enforcement. Rust can’t reiterate often enough how much he doesn’t care. He can't see how enforcing taxes on tea and protein bars falls under his self-proclaimed jurisdiction.

But then they make landfall, and before Rust can get away Mal’s gotten his goods stolen and Kaylee kidnapped, and everything’s a fucking mess. The crew is gathered in _Serenity_ 's cockpit and Peter or Simon is yelling at Mal and Jayne, they're yelling back, Zoe's arguing with both of them, Inara is trying and failing to keep any kind of peace, and Rust is done with this shit.

“Who’s your contact?” he demands, hands braced in the doorway.

Mal looks up sharply and Zoe turns, hand resting lightly on the gun at her hip. “We’re discussing some personal business,” Zoe says firmly. “Please—“

“Oh, don’t give me that shit,” Rust snaps, eyes on Mal. He's picked up a few things over the weeks of grudging dinner conversation. “You’re so blinded by a war you lost over a decade ago that you’ll turn down your best chance to save that girl? Spare me your fucking righteousness about your cause and your loyalty, and tell me who your contact is.”

“Jeremy Denard,” the girl who's not named Jiang says from behind him, and Rust jerks as Mal swears. She's like a bad circuit. She hums, sparks sometimes. He doesn’t like looking at her too long. Didn’t think she liked him much, either. But he looks at her now, and she looks back steadily. “He’s not that kind of cop,” she announces, quelling Mal’s complaints. “He can help.”

Mal looks frustrated. “Are you sure?” and she looks at him witheringly.

“Fine,” he snaps. “He can come with. If he can stick to the plan.” Mal’s voice is a dare, and Rust meets his eyes, raises his hands non-threateningly.

“Let’s go then, cowboy.”

* * *

Mal’s plan is a goddamn disaster, and soon it’s all an ugly brawl. Rust has two men on the ground, and when one tries to get up, he kicks him viciously in the head. Another goes for Mal’s back, and he and Zoe get there at the same time, Rust kicking out his knee as Zoe smashes her gun into the back of his head. Jayne is flinging guards haphazardly into the walls, but most of them stay down. Rust pushes his way deeper into the dealers' den, a maze of tents and rickety structures, and Mal stumbles after him. It's Rust who finds find Kaylee, bound and rumpled but unharmed, hidden inside an oversized chest. He pulls her out, cuts the ropes away from her wrists, and guides her out with a hand on her back until they find their way back to to the rest of the crew.

Mal wraps a protective arm around her, and Kaylee hugs him tightly.  "I'm sorry," she says miserably. "I shouldn't have let them get so close."

"Hush," Mal instructs. "You're all right?" She nods, and he rubs her arm. "Then no harm done, and now that we've got Denard tied up out front, I'm guessing we can cut out the middle man, get ourselves a nice price. Everybody wins," he finishes brightly. "'Cept for Denard, but maybe he'll take that as a lesson."

He looks up at Rust. "You're not bad in a fight," he says, and Rust looks around the demolished trade center.

"You did all right," he returns.

Mal and Zoe look at each other, and Mal clears his throat. "Listen, I know we haven't been the most cordial bunch, but Calliope doesn't have to be your final stop if you don't want."

Rust is already shaking his head when Jayne sticks his head around the corner. "Mal, the sheriff's out front, we gotta go!"

" _Ta ma de hun dan_ ," Mal spits. "Let's get." He eyes Rust. "You coming?"

Rust doesn't have to think about it. It's not a bad crew, but there are holes in it—the empty seat next to Zoe at the table, the former occupant of his cabin—and he's not the one to fill them. He can find better purpose elsewhere. He steps back. "Go ahead. I'll put him off your trail though."

He gets a nod of respect from Mal, and Kaylee presses on his arm as she leaves, bending him down so she can kiss his cheek. "Take care of yourself," she instructs, and he smiles faintly, feeling it pull at unused muscles as they sneak out the back.

Rust circles around the front, waits until Denard's men have been marched out, and then edges in to where the sheriff is scowling down at a tiny notepad. "Some dust up," Rust remarks, and the man looks up, eying him.

"Typical nonsense around here," he replies. "You see any of it?"

Rust shakes his head. "Not me. Heard the commotion over by the docks, showed up after it was all done. Rust Cohle," he holds out his hand, and the sheriff takes it willingly. "Alliance police force, until recently. Just a private citizen now. I came in on the Firefly this morning, but they got spooked by the ruckus. Said they didn't want any trouble making its way to their boat, and took off again. So here I am."

The sheriff's eyes narrow, and he scopes Rust out again. "Marty Hart. Sheriff, as you can likely tell. Was the whole crew aboard the ship while this went down?"

Rust meets his eyes, poker faced. "I can't speak to every one of them, but if they weren't, they would have got left behind. Ship took off soon as I stepped off."

Marty sighs. "Worth a try." He tucks his notebook into his jacket pocket, and jerks his chin towards Rust. "You passing through, or planning on being here a while?"

Rust puts his hands in his pockets and shrugs. "We're all just passing through. The time we spend on any one place—even a lifetime—is barely noticeable, from a universal perspective."

Marty frowns at him. "Okay," he says slowly. "Well, if you do stick around, and you find yourself in need of a job, you let me know. Ain't too often we get Alliance trained officers out here, and I've got bigger cases to deal with than this small time shit. Could use the expertise."

Rust nods. "I need a job," he admits, and agrees to meet Marty at the station the next morning.

He walks off down the street. It'll be good to have a purpose again, and he rides that resolve past the saloon with its loud music and shouting, finding the boarding house on the next street. He can do this, he can be Rust and not suicidal or Crash, which were basically the same thing anyway. He takes a breath and looks up. The stars are back to normal, but he can remember what they looked like from space, and he holds that in his mind's eye. There's always more light than it appears.


End file.
